What if stock exchange regulators worldwide began to agree on sustainability reporting standards? In theory, that would mean publicly held businesses worldwide would finally have a standard framework for their Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 reporting efforts.
Moreover, a global sustainability reporting standard would help technology and business partners worldwide to provide more consistent customer guidance on net-zero strategies, Sustainable Tech Partner believes.
Admittedly, a global standard for sustainability reporting has yet to arrive. Still, there are multiple signs of progress. Follow this regularly updated timeline to see how an international climate-reporting standards framework may emerge. Read from the bottom-up for chronological updates.
Sustainability and Climate Reporting Standards: Key Developments and Regulations
2024: The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) wants to deliver a "toolkit for both sustainability-related disclosure and related assurance standards that should be available to jurisdictions and ready for use by issuers for the end-2024 accounts," the organization said.
October 2023: The SEC is striving to announce its climate disclosure regulations by October 2023, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agenda that surfaced on June 13, 2023. The rules are expected extend across business supply chains -- which means the regulations could dramatically impact companies of all sizes, along with their technology partners.
July 25, 2023: Multiple updates...
- The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) endorsed the sustainability-related financial disclosures standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), IFRS S1 and IFRS S2. IOSCO determined that the ISSB Standards are "appropriate to serve as a global framework for capital markets to develop the use of sustainability-related financial information in both capital raising and trading and for the purpose of helping globally integrated financial markets accurately assess relevant sustainability risks and opportunities," the organization said.
- IOSCO has called on its 130 member jurisdictions, regulating more than 95% of the world's financial markets, to "consider ways in which they might adopt, apply or otherwise be informed by the ISSB Standards within the context of their jurisdictional arrangements, in a way that promotes consistent and comparable climate-related and other sustainability-related disclosures for investors."
July 20, 2023: The forthcoming SEC climate disclosure regulations will likely align in many way with the European Union CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), Greenly CEO Alexis Normand said in this podcast.
Ongoing updates: Follow this regularly updated timeline to see how an international climate-reporting standards framework may emerge. Read from the bottom-up for chronological updates.
